Premise: When we last left Batman eight years ago, he was on the run, accused of killing Harvey Dent so that Dent’s death could promote change in Gotham. Since then, Bruce Wayne has made himself a shut-in in his own home, hiding from the world and any human contact. Though there are still petty criminals – such as “robin-hood” jewel thief – out there, organize crime has been crushed under the Dent Law. That is until a new evil arrives at Gotham named, Bane, a masked (for lack of a better word) terrorist that threatens to bring down the Batman, Bruce Wayne, and destroy Gotham once and for all.

My Review: I’ll just say it. Let’s just cut the cord and say it. The Dark Knight was the better of this trilogy. And since everyone is comparing it to The Avengers…I feel like The Avengers was the better movie. There. I said it. It’s done. It’s out there.

The Dark Knight Rises wasn’t bad. It was really, really good, in fact. The movie looked fantastic. Seeing it in IMAX, I could definitely tell that it was shot on an IMAX camera. The action sequences looked incredible. But when it was all said and done, I didn’t walk out of the theater feeling jazzed, feeling excited, feeling like I wanted to talk and talk and talk about it. The movie was definitely set up as the last movie of a trilogy. With each face that popped up, you were reminded of an old friend, an old, comfortable feeling. However, the problem with that is with each passing beat, you felt exactly what the movie was building towards, and you knew exactly how it was going to end. And then, it ended exactly like that…with maybe one twist I didn’t see coming.

Though it was the perfect ending to the trilogy, it all felt too neat and tidy. I just wanted something more. To read what I liked and disliked about the movie check out my list below…

Rating: Almost 4 Stars…almost.

SPOILER ALERT!!

SPOILER ALERT!! DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE! SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!!

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

5 Things I Liked About This Movie

1) Michael Caine – He was fabulous in this movie and had much more to do than he did in TDK. Even in his small role he added so much depth and heartbreak to his character. He was magical on screen.

2) Anne Hathaway – Okay, so I just like the girl. I’ve seen most, if not all of the movies she’s in. I think she’s a fine actress. I was a bit worried he role as Catwoman would be all one liners and sexiness, but I was pleasantly surprised. Though she had a lot of one-liners and was in a costume so tight you could hear the sound of the skin hugging leather as she walked, Anne brought out the more human side of Catwoman as Selina Kyle. Plus, she also provided a lot of comic relief, and we all love a kick-ass girl that can make us laugh.

3) Batman had a worthy adversary. Don’t get me wrong Joker had the smarts and he was a great, arguably the greatest villain of Christopher Nolan’s Trilogy. But there was something about watching Bane kick the ass out of Batman that made the costs feel that much higher. Okay so it wasn’t quite the same feeling as watching Thor and Iron Man battle it out, but it did feel quite epic. And it was hard to watch.

4) **SPOILER ALERT!!!**SPOILER ALERT!!!**I love that the movie had a happy ending. I felt satisfied with Bruce Wayne’s journey and I’m glad he got the girl. Selina Kyle was the right girl all along – it just didn’t feel right with Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard). I also they didn’t embellish anything. All Selina did was slightly turn her head in the blurry foreground, and that was enough for us to know that Bruce got his happy ending. Good, subtle work there Christopher Nolan.

5) **SPOILER ALERT!!!**SPOILER ALERT!!!** Joseph Gordon Levitt as Robin. That was a wonderful idea. I was convinced the last 30 minutes of the movie that they were setting JGL up to be the next Batman. However, with this revelation there’s no where you can go with it. You can’t make a Robin movie. I think JGL’s overall contribution to the movie was very successful. He actually had more screen time than most of the other players.

5 Things I Didn’t Like About This Movie

1) The predictability. I go back and forth debating about whether it would have been better had Bruce Wayne/Batman died this tragic hero. But the minute Alfred talked about all these things he imagined for Bruce’s life, I knew that was exactly what would happen. Especially since he went into such specific detail about it. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice, sweet, touch, but the set up for it, took away from the impact.

2) Repeating plot points. Bane taking the football field, then the city of Gotham hostage for some weird social experiment. Um, didn’t The Joker do this in TDK? Can’t someone just be evil because they’re evil? Just for the fun of it? The whole thing just felt recycled. Now granted the football collapsing into itself with one of the players not even noticing until he made his touchdown was a pretty fantastic piece of action. But then having Bane take the entire stadium hostage, say some words we can’t understand with the exception of “nuclear bomb”, “trigger man”, “if you escape you die”, it all just felt….contrived.

3) Where are our heroes? Bruce Wayne/Batman and Commissioner Gordon were out of commission for most of the movie. What’s up with that? I understand Bruce Wayne had to go through this whole “life changing,” “who am I” sort of journey, but it just took him so long to get there.

4) It was dark. Like really, really dark. There was this heavy feeling all throughout the film. I understand it’s not that type of movie. But it is a comic book movie at the same time. Even though there were a few light hearted, chuckle-worthy moments, for the most part I felt like the weight of the world was on its shoulders – or Batman’s shoulders.

5) **MAJOR PLOT POINT SPOILERS**DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE** The actions of some of the characters/authority figures were not believable, leaving us with unanswered questions that BUG ME. Would the world really just abandon a city refusing to let anyone escape? If people can sneak in, no one could get communication to the outside world that the bomb was going to explode anyway so that they could let as many people escape in the final moments as possible? How did Bruce Wayne get from the prison back to Gotham City so fast? How does everyone, even a little boy know Bruce Wayne is Batman except for Gordon, who’s supposed to be a detective? Why does Selina Kyle dress up like a cat? So. Many. Questions.

6) (Yeah, sorry, this needed to be done.)The Batman? What’s up with calling Batman, “The Batman”? Is it a comic book thing? It just bugs me and sounds pretentious. The Batman. Did they do that in TDK?

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I like that they made JGL Robin rather than Batman, which like you, I originally thought they were going to do. And because they didn’t kill Batman, there is still always that chance that Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan could change their minds and do a fourth movie. It’s unlikely, but a girl can dream… lol